


It Was Always You

by biswholocked



Series: JWP 2015 [27]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Community: watsons_woes, Friendship, Gen, London, Minisode: Many Happy Returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biswholocked/pseuds/biswholocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John reflects on his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Was Always You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day twenty seven of JWP. The prompt was: "Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be the anti-social one with Watson as his only friend. But who are Watson's friends outside of Sherlock Holmes?" So of course my mind turned to Many Happy Returns.

_“All his friends hate him. You only have to look at their faces.”_

John remembers it, clearly; a typed and bound essay, by Sherlock Holmes, detailing all the ways people attempt to conceal their hatred when in close proximity to the object of their derision. John had laughed it off at the party, _a gag joke from my flatmate_ , but that night after all the guests had gone he sat in his armchair with a glass of whisky and read the whole thing. It was all laid out for him, every barb and two-edged compliment, every declined offer and every reluctant acceptance, every masked opinion and voiced complaint. Bitterness and anger had filled John at the realisation that Sherlock was right-- as he always was, the infuriating bastard. John avoided Sherlock for the next three days, unwilling to face him for fear of exploding and embarrassment, until a triple homicide dragged him into Sherlock’s orbit once more.

And then Sherlock died. John took time off from the clinic; no-one visited, excepting Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. (Mycroft tried, but John slammed the door in his face and refused to get in any black cars that followed him.) When he went back to work in an attempt to regain normalcy, stares and whispers followed him constantly. His ‘friends’ disappeared into the woodwork, and John was left alone.

Now, John sits in the dark, drinking, unable to erase the image of Sherlock from his eyelids.

“It was always you,” he whispers. “Didn’t you see that? None of them mattered, so long as there was you.”

Silence is the only answer.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/ con crit always welcome!


End file.
